20th Century Towers
by Xyliette
Summary: That ten song challenge thing, times two. Crossover, and finale s  heavy. See story for all pairings.
1. as we drown we could hear them screaming

A/N: My shuffle was especially depressing today for some reason.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
20th Century Towers  
- Death Cab For Cutie  
~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Callie/Arizona**  
"Finish Your Collapse and Stay for Breakfast" - Broken Social Scene  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
"I can't," is all she says before turning over and setting her sights at the drawn blinds in Callie's room. Ten kids sounded fun, a million little crazy monsters sounded like a great idea in the face of adversity, but it was a half-truth when she said it, and a complete lie now.

Fear spoke, disparity beckoned her with a crooked finger. And she needed, on a basic, human level.

But then cribs burst into her dreams, and her own mother planning a wedding, then the screaming, and puking, and heartbreaking disappointment that comes with every bundle of joy.

Arizona thinks she could be a mom, she thinks she could be a potentially great mother, but more overwhelmingly, she doesn't want to be one, and it prevails one late night after bland pasta and heavy drinks at Joe's.

All she did was prolong the inevitable, purchase unavailable time.

In the morning it's three aspirin, four shots of espresso, and ten minutes of solid chain smoking. None of which are great plans for avoiding impending disaster, but they are, at the very least, honest.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Alex, Alex/Izzie**  
"Ode to Divorce" - Regina Spektor  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
The divorce papers arrive without much fanfare, in fact he's not sure how long they sit amongst a pile of his mail in Meredith's kitchen before it catches his eye. He's busy trying to be busy, after all. Because he meant it when he said he deserved better than he was getting, he just didn't expect the loss to cut so deeply.

For a week he does strong double-takes, looking for the briefest hints of blonde around corners, and the smell of cupcakes lingering in old, rumpled on-call room sheets.

It's Thursday, after another shift, exactly the same as the one before it,and he pours a cup of coffee and decides to pick his poisonous pen. There's not going to be a parade, or sorrowful drinks in remembrance. There's only silence, and the rain splashing into puddles outside.

The rolling ball dies halfway through his Alexander and he has no choice but to continue with black ink seeping over the blue, marking his failure plainly. Then he stares at it, the appointed tabs, the legal jargon, before hastily shoving it back into the manila envelope and preparing it for its next journey.

Yet, it still takes another two weeks to send off the half-and-half signature.

When it's official, he isn't aware, he's toiling through, pretending it was merely a fleck of sin, a drop in the bucket of all the things he's already screwed up beyond repair. In two months he'll figure it's safe to say the whole thing never happened, but even so, sometimes he awakens to a chilly mattress with the faintest feeling of what was meant to be.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Derek/Addison**  
"Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" - Stars (Final Fantasy)  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
It happens at a conference three years almost to the date that they signed their respective names on a simple line that destroyed everything they attempted to build. It was a wobbly frame structured on crafty omissions and basic naivety, but it was theirs.

Stephen X. Kilinger, their apparently mutual friend, recently moved into the chaotic field of oncology introduces them over watered down cocktails in a faceless hotel lobby.

Three years and the world has forgotten they once existed together. So they play a little, make small talk as if they haven't shared their deepest fears hiding from thunderstorms, like they haven't spent full nights on the phone with each other more than a few times. They coyly toy around with sentences, careful glares, and empty, polite laughs as though at one point the person directly across from them didn't literally stop the world from moving.

When Stephen declares it an instant hit, they excuse themselves from the pack, and she parts first, a list of twenty excuses he's used on her ready at the will. He calls her name, because that's who they are, but she feigns deafness and slides onto the cool elevator wall gasping for the breath he still manages to steal.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Mark, Mark/Addison**  
"So Long" - Ingrid Michaelson  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
It would be better to say that Addison was a prize to be won, between him and his once brother. It would be better to admit that maybe he was having fun in the chase, or that, perhaps, they fell in love in the course of their friendship and that it was easily transitioned to a relationship due to their incredibly volatile sexual tension.

He shouldn't mention that she had a weird sort of influence over the things he did, that sometimes he did the opposite purely to spite her. And he definitely wouldn't want confess that he had always longed to be the one she labored over, trying to gain attention.

But he's here anyway, also due in part, to her existence.

Because Mark isn't exactly accustomed to losing, even when it was at his own hand. Because Mark isn't particularly great at getting attached to things, since they always seem to be fleeting.

But mostly he reckons, as he stretches out against the comfortably leather couch (the young brunette inches away, fiddling with her pencil and paper), it's because he has a distinct ache in his chest that most closely resembles heartbreak.

And he needs that to stop immediately.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Cristina/Owen/Teddy**  
"Spaceship Broken – Parts Needed" - Pelican  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
If anyone ever asks, she'll deny everything. Not that anyone is likely to ask if she, Cristina freaking Yang, would suddenly strike up the urge to play Cupid, but just in case, she has a lie sticking out of her back pocket. It's more of a distraction plan intended to wittily hurt the questioners feelings and insult their intelligence, and she thinks it'll work out just fine.

Not that seeing Teddy Altman, her former needed mentor, and her ex together is fun times, but there is something alarmingly settling about the whole thing. Because she's pretty sure Teddy would have pulled her hands away from Derek's heart if Owen was shot instead of just screaming no again and again, and she's positive that Teddy is selfish enough to urge herself away from a patient, even if that patient was her best friend's husband, even if there was a crazy gun being flung about the room.

They'd go down together, they will go down together. And Cristina knows enough about herself, about Owen, and about Teddy to understand that this is what they deserve, whether it be trying or discombobulated, or otherwise. So she endures the cheers from the sidelines of the nurses who were either rooting for her failure or found the wartime love story too cute to resist, and she puts up with Meredith lodging her for two solid weeks of drinking games after the whole ordeal settles down.

Because Teddy can fix what her persistence cannot mend, and Owen should have someone who can do more than simply say it's okay. But mostly because Cristina has never needed more than her warmed scalpel and a steady monitor in the background.

And if anyone ever gets the nerve, stupid April or Lexie, she'll tell them that they are such horrible doctors because they can't pull their heads out of the damn clouds long enough to keep people from dying.

She's pretty sure that'll do the trick.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
**Sam/Addison**  
"Hollywood Sunset" - Barry Adamson  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
One of Addison's most redeeming qualities, is also the thing that happens to drive Sam crazy. And it is that apposition keeping his mind spinning all night, his fingers firmly wound in her hair. She's superb at taking care of others, of checking on others, and attempting to be aware of how everyone feels about every little change. So much so that they haven't really had a whole lot of time to focus on their own relationship.

Sure, they share coffee, and sunsets, and have had the opportunity to set up or lend support to one another. But something feels...missing, and after three weeks Sam thinks that it's time to take a break, get away from the practice and the tedious ballet they are twisting through- avoiding certain situations.

Their coupling seems to be rooted in professionalism.

And he'd like to kiss her in the middle of a store if he feels like it, or hold her hand on the elevator when their co-workers are present. Because he's in this, he's risked so much, waited so long, that he feels greedy.

He wants her all, now please. He wants the tears, the fears, and the joys of being her partner. And what he's got is stress in his lower back, a gnawing feeling that his ex-wife is hiding around each corner, and the woman he never knew he wanted.

He spends the early morning readying himself- because it's Addison. She's not going to jump into a vacation without asking what about the practice, and what about Maya, and what about Milo, and her patients, and that one appointment she has in one week and two days, and what about Amelia, and they can't leave Thurgood Marshall in her incapable hands.

There will be questions he can't silence with a kiss, and problems he can't solve with a hug, but this small leap, the experiment of really getting to know Addison is something that excites him too much to pass up. So with a deep breath he wiggles his toes, nudging her elbow, and assaults her with the proposal before she can yawn. She's more compliant half-awake (it's how he got her to play basketball with him last Sunday).

Strategy is never a bad thing.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Addison, Lucas, Sam/Addison**  
"Missing Persons 1 & 2" - OneRepublic  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
No one in the room misses it, Lucas reaching out for Addison's red hair, her dangling bracelets, and the support he's come to know. No one is immune to his screeching when she promptly gives a quick wave to him and then disappears around the closest corner. Violet runs the opposite way leaving Pete with their upset child, Cooper smirking at the world falling in on someone else's head, and Sam's insecurity.

He forges ahead anyway, cause that's what he signed up for.

"Addison," Sam says sternly, noting how her head doesn't even jerk at the sound of his voice like normal, instead her eyes are trained on her computer. "Talk to me."

"I- I'm sorry," Pete sputters, spilling into the room with his son. "I- he's not going to stop until he gets his way."

Sam sighs, stepping away, relinquishing the moment to the guy he's been quietly battling. He watches his whatever they are unwillingly take the one year old on her lap and talk to him softly before darting her own thumb out to wipe the moisture off his cheeks. And that's all it seems to take for their bond to spark, lighting the room in a warm glow that leaves even him unaffected. He's never particularly cared to watch Addison play house with Pete's kid, for more than a few reasons, but it's hard to look away.

And it's hard to watch her hand him back calmly, smile patiently and tell Pete to have a good day as though nothing had transpired. "Addison-"

"I miss him," she croaks, spinning away toward the window. She keeps telling herself that it's okay now, because she has Sam, because she's supposed to get the guy and then the baby, but it's a hurt she's never felt before, watching someone else swoon over him, feed him, make him laugh. And yes, she was way too attached, way too quickly, but it's difficult to be a childless mother.

"I know," is his only reply. He sees it every time Lucas is around, every time she plays with his granddaughter. And if this was a normal relationship, this wouldn't be the right time to bring it up, but this is Addison. Addison who he thought would have five curly headed little monsters running around by now, Addison who he thought would be watching ballet recitals with her husband, and Addison who he clearly pictured at a trip to the zoo trying to organize bags of crackers and juice boxes.

Instead she's here, with him, and there's a conversation looming. "Do- you- You want kids...still..."

"I can't have kids," she reminds him hollowly, anger building every time she has to say it, because it's ridiculous that nature won't let her procreate with her amazing genes and insane biological clock.

"I know," Sam repeats, but as they are all aware there's more than a few ways to have children.

"I have a patient," Addison states, clears her throat and waits forty seconds for him to sheepishly trail off in search of the gleaming answer she hasn't been able to find.

Months later, tangled up in his perfect arms, Addison still can't say losing Lucas was worth it.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Derek/Meredith**  
"The Blue Notebooks" - Max Richter  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
It's easy not to talk about it when Derek is all hopped up on painkillers. And it's equally as senseless to bring it up when he's trying to recover, and though she senses some sort of lingering trauma, Meredith doesn't know how to help, so she leaves it, dusts a quilt over the topic that covered the news for weeks.

He makes a glorious comeback, relieving the temporary Chief, and vows to do better. She asks him what it is that he's up so late at night plotting, but he there's nothing definitive.

Derek's chasing ghosts.

She completely abandons the idea of saying anything the day marking the one year anniversary. Derek's doting, watching silly surgery tapes with her (even revealing a few of his own), and joining her for drinks when needed.

They feel stronger than ever, they look stronger than ever, and then the stick strikes up controversy again. It's her turn to not talk about the thing he hasn't been privy to. It's her turn to tango with the past.

It becomes their divide, a wall they can't hoist one another over. She leaves in her seventh month, staying with Cristina, never having to explain what is going on, it's the bond she wants to share with her husband, but he's consumed with being better.

Derek is an excellent father, and she fairs well as a mother. They toil in the same O.R.s, share patient loads, and split custody of their only child.

Their penchant for bottling it up suits the situation, and when it doesn't, their son patches the hole long enough for resolve.

It's not what she saw coming, it's not the fairytale, not even the Meredith Grey version, but it works without a surprising amount of pain and turmoil.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Mark**  
"Sleeping Sickness (Demo Version)" - City and Colour  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
His eyelids are heavy, slates of concrete being yanked up by a dangerously thin thread. His name is being shouted again and again, and solid right hook lands on his tender ribs.

"Damn it Mark!" Callie shrieks, her mascara stains lining Arizona's shirt.

He gets a glimpse before her Spanish tirade, his mouth dry. He can see with his eyes closed. Derek is in the corner pretending to be unaffected, Meredith is lingering out in the hall, Arizona has his left hand, Teddy is reading his chart, and Yang is sneering at him from afar.

"Head. Hurts," he slurs, trying to inch up on the bed as Callie tells him that's what he gets for trying to die, and suddenly the room goes silent, his own heart lining their ears.

"I just wanted to sleep," Mark says softly, keeping his eyes locked tight, afraid of what will haunt him if he opens up. There are no words to explain the breakdown, the despair, the quiet resolution.

Someone takes his right hand, he thinks Callie, and squeezes tightly. Then he drifts off, his body brutalized by his attempt to rest peacefully.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Addison, Archer**  
"The World We Knew As Children" - Hammock  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**  
It seems unfitting that after all the fanfare of having parasites in his brain, that a quick and dirty car crash would claim Archer A. Montgomery's life, but that's the reality of Addison's afternoon. Susan called and left word with Sam, who told Naomi, and the rest followed rather resolutely.

She came alone, made the trek across the states into another land. It's filled with pollen ridden flowers, deep mahogany, and expensive hors d'œuvres.

Addison sees nothing of her mother or father until after the service, when they retreat to their respective cars. Her nose is stuffed, there's a handkerchief looped around her pinky, and her black umbrella does nothing to shade her red rimmed eyes. Bizzy looks at her as if she's a stranger, and she may as well be, hardly anyone has said anything to her all day, and The Captain manages to only give a courteous nod in her direction.

She's never felt so absolutely alone.

A world without her snotty, know-it-all, overprotective brother is a completely foreign concept. And not one she is ready to indulge in. As she pushes back against the plush leather seat she wishes for the first time that she would have allowed someone, anyone to come along. But she doesn't like exposing Sam to this more than necessary and Naomi seemed like an awkward choice.

Still, Archer is gone. She has no partner in crime, no comrade in the crazy hurricane of waspy existences, no one in the vast universe who understands what it is to be an unlucky Montgomery.

And as much as she ever hated him, everything he stood for, all of the hurt he put everyone through, she can't think of a single thing she wouldn't trade to have him back- ignoring her calls, and announcing drunkenly that he'd rather have her back with Derek than with Sam.

She curls into herself, a tight ball, and rides back home to the sounds of her own rattling sobs, no longer a shoulder to lean upon.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


	2. what a tragic way to see our final days

**Mark/Addison**  
"The Crane Dance", Ludovico Einaudi  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

It's during a two in the morning feeding that Addison looks over at her husband with a broad smile and announces that she loves him. She always secretly feared she'd be doing this solo (even when she wasn't alone). The spit up in her hair, and her complete lack of memory beyond the last time their daughter ate, the piles of laundry littering the floor, and overflowing sink have all proved to be a non-issue for them.

It doesn't seem to matter that no one is into sleeping anymore (something Mark attributes to getting through his internship), or that coffee has become a food group of its own. The fact that there is no food in the fridge, only hard alcohol in the freezer, and barren shelves aren't even on their radar.

He thought she'd be driving him crazy about every little nitpicking detail, but he finds her oddly content with motherhood and the chaos it breeds. And while she spent the entire adoption process convinced that he would abandon her when this got hard, she is pleasantly surprised (and relieved) to be entirely in the wrong.

Addison feels Mark's strong arms weak with fatigue as they loop around her and drag her toward his chest, and she can sense the kiss on the top of her ratted hair before it even lands. When the bottle runs dry, when their baby's eyes droop shut uncontrollably against her shirt, Addison slouches a little and makes herself at ease for the next few hours, minutes, or seconds; whatever may be provided to them by the little girl that now runs the household.

And she'll take it, and him, in a manner and fashion she never mapped out all those years ago when she declared "I do" to an era that is now nothing more than a friendly fog of memories and places she never visits.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Jackson/Cristina**  
"Last Day of Winter"- Pelican  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

When he shows up unannounced at her door one day in February to reclaim his favor, she's taken by surprise.

She's assaulted.

Pinned to the door frame, a specific wedge of wood digging into her back. His hands dip into her hair and wind carelessly, his lips seem to have a mind of their own, slowly working against the rest of his violent body, teasing, nipping, enjoying their time on hers.

She shoves him away the first chance she gets, but later draws him into the kitchen tugging on his shirt.

Saying they're even tomorrow morning, scratches down his back, his lower teeth imprinted on her inner thigh, will be a whole hell of a lot easier than saying she enjoyed it.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**April, Derek/April**  
"Glittering Blackness" - Explosions in the Sky  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

She rationalized that it was easy to idolize a man she spent the better part of a year working very closely with. And she reasoned that it was perfectly understandable that in her early gullible years as a resident that it was only natural that a man of such great talent, and composure would catch her eye. She imagined that it was this, his ability and not his gorgeously tousled waves and oddly adorable nose that made him so attractive.

Yes, it was the fact that he could get up in the morning, shaggy, and come to work presentable enough to scrub in on an eight hour surgery and then turn around and go concentrate on board meetings and mindless paperwork, that made him so damn endearing.

It was all logical.

And she'd had enough therapy to assess her own situation, and enough to realize, now looking at the indestructible Derek C. Shepherd, struggling to recover from his own demons, that perhaps it was more of the outward appearance of focus and control and less of the inner beauty that made him captivating. Because the person she's wheeling out to his wife, the one who just signed his own release forms, isn't the person she fell for.

He isn't anything but a shell.

But then, she supposes, it would be hard to say that any of them are still the things they once were.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Alex/Lexie**  
"A Message of Avarice Rained Down and Carried Us Away Into False Dreams of Endless Riches" - Red Sparowes  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

After the shootings, after the hype, after the semblance of life came back into focus, she was really the only thing that still made sense. And it gave him an awkward stumble forward into a land where he made breakfast (shitty toast and orange juice) and took it to her in bed, and actually remembered what her favorite color was instead of which position seemed to make her scream the loudest while he was trying not to orgasm too quickly.

It was after the world ended.

After he recovered physically, after she found the courage to breakdown in his arms, he finally felt the connection. Alex gave in to the dates, the lazy movie nights, the fighting, and the initial trust that came with any new relationship. And while he was hardly accustomed to relying on a damn thing besides himself, it was nice, he found, to have a little backup when Shepherd got annoying and whiny downstairs on the couch. Plus, she stayed in his bed so Meredith couldn't.

Because what he didn't need was other people's drama, their bullshit to come confuse his sudden pleasure with domesticity. Instead he was greeted with a hardy slap on the back from his own hurricane in the form of Mark Sloan riding his ass, trying to steal his girlfriend out from under his nose.

Secretly, after the world ended, he couldn't blame the guy. That was, until he came home to find his once Plastics hero unmercifully wound in one of his old sweatshirts drinking coffee out of Derek's favorite cup.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Derek/Addison**  
"Prisoners of Circumstance" - A Northern Chorus  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"That's because she hates me," Addison reminds her husband, shuffling their five month old nephew onto her hip and groaning when he sharply grasps her long hair.

"My mother loves you Addie," Derek grins, kissing her cheek.

"Hardly," Addison retorts, swishing the baby out of his grasp, and rushing into the other room to pick up before the entourage of Shepherds can arrive. Nancy has been in town for three days, visiting, playing well with others (unlike every other person), and is now out Christmas shopping with her husband, enjoying the light dusting of snow that December is coating the city with.

"It will be fine," he assures her, digging his fingers into her shoulders and grinning at Jacob who squeals his reply loudly. "We should get one of these," he remarks moments later, the baby's warm fingers wrapped over his thumb.

"We should," Addison agrees hesitantly, before turning around to face him. "Later, though."

"Later," Derek complies easily. They have forever for babies and picket fences, baseball games and sleepovers. Now, they have work, and each other. The knock at the door pulls him from his reverie before he can sneak in a kiss and then suddenly he's swept up into a different world as his family barges through the entryway, not bothering to kick out of their shoes, ice melting into puddles on Addison's new rug.

"Addison," Carolyn greets with a suspiciously warm smile. "Jacob, there's my snuggle boy."

"Hello," Addison returns, handing over the baby, her husband rounding through his sisters, nowhere near close enough to fall back on.

With a sigh she follows them all further into the house, using the niceties she was taught young, and happy to have them if for no other reason than knowing how to deal with mother in-laws who hate you simply because you were born.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Mark/Callie/Arizona**  
"What Fell Down from the Moon Last Night" - Joy Wants Eternity  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

It starts as a friend thing, because good God he isn't getting any younger (though he won't admit it), and she once described to him that she wants children so badly that it physically hurts. She makes funny faces at kids in carts at the grocery store when they all go on Sundays for their weekly trip, and he laughs when children fall down in parking lots. Callie melts at the sight of newborns in the nursery and Mark finds himself visiting more often without her than he'll ever allow anyone to know.

She thinks they'd make pretty babies. She thinks she'd rather actually know the sperm donor. She thinks Arizona won't mind.

And she's right up until about the seventh month of her pregnancy, two little babies flipping and kicking around inside of her endlessly.

And then it's a problem that Mark sometimes sleeps over, that he joins them for every check up and measuring. It's an issue that Arizona believes can't be resolved, because their bond is growing, hers is weakening, and she has a sudden respect for how much Mark Sloan would like to be involved in his children's lives.

And she can't handle that. So she leaves, a thief in the night, with nothing more than a note that explains nothing, but wishes them well in a manner that causes Callie to crash her lips into his and yank off the tight shirt that has been driving her crazy for the better part of a week.

It wasn't the solution or resolution they were all looking for when they began this asinine idea, but as Mark trails his fingers along the slope hiding his kids, Callie realizes that it might be something worth pursuing anyway, even at the risk of breaking her already fractured heart.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Addison, Sam/Addison**  
"The Sun's Condolences" - Gifts From Enola  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

The sun is shameless about its eternal joy on the morning Addison wakes with sharp cramps. It's their through the whole unrelenting process that leaves her in a ball, wrecked with tears, shaking over her lost chance at a child.

It hurts everywhere as she climbs into the shower, attempting to scrub the thought of cribs and pacifiers off her mind.

Sam is in the other room, asleep, she presumes. It was his idea, half of his biology.

He said they should try, he said they would never know until they gave it a shot.

She finds herself holding her own hair away from the drain as she retches last night's pasta. She steadies her own hands against the slippery tile, banging her head back once, twice, three times until she thinks she may pass out.

He told her that they deserved a break from the rain, that it was their turn for some good stuff.

She thinks now, hunched into the corner, hiding, it wasn't worth the aching disparity of finding out.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Owen/Teddy**  
"The Slowest Way of Saying So Little" - The Six Parts Seven  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

She hasn't seen him in ten days. And of course there has been a lot going on, and she has been monitoring Alex Karev at another hospital, but after the whole mess all she wanted to do was hug him until they couldn't breathe anymore. Instead, she told him it was fine.

She gave her blessing, to something that wasn't hers to give in the first place.

Which is why she's surprised when the eleventh day comes and goes as well. She's heard updates, perked up at the whispers circulating the halls. He's staying with Yang, recovering.

Teddy didn't realize that giving Owen up meant losing him as her friend, though she should have seen it coming. So she buries herself in work for the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth day, until there he is, rounding on patients like he never left at all.

The audacity is astounding, and she tells him as much when they find a private moment scrubbing in.

She can see him trying to leave, trying to hurry, but its pointless. When she demands to know why, after everything, he couldn't pick up the damn phone, he just looks away.

And she knows, but she makes him say it anyway. Because even when she wants to fight, kick, and pull Cristina's hair, when she wants to shout that he was hers first, and when all she wants to do is kiss him, just to see what it would be like, she can't.

He unceremoniously asks her to leave, nearly pleads, and up until the seventeenth day Teddy thinks she may actually grant his request, make it easier on everyone around them. But then, she remembers, that she came to Seattle for herself (even if she stayed for him), and she's too tired of the triangle nonsense to slink off in quiet resignation.

He was hers first, as a friend, and she'll work her hardest to keep it that way. At least, until he asks her again.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Addison, Derek**  
"Verse For Forgiveness (Instrumental)" - Hammock  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

She's in Seattle when she hears the news, consulting on a pair of conjoined twins that she would love to deliver and help separate, tricky as it may be. And she should be overjoyed to hear that her ex-husband's world is falling apart, his perfect wife taken up with another after a lengthy downfall, but she isn't.

Because she never really started hating him enough to be spiteful, only hurt.

And disliking Meredith was a futile task she hadn't the energy for at the time. Besides, she could only imagine the things Derek had said, if anything, to the poor child to get her to stick around.

She sees him in the cafeteria later in the day, her head pounding with probabilities and anxiety. He's eating alone. He isn't the chief. His hair is having a rough week.

And he looks like he could just use some sort of friend, so without much thought one way or another, she sets her tray next to his, nudges his shoulder until he scoots and then slides onto the chair next to him. They don't say anything. She steals his pudding and he takes the cucumbers off her salad without asking.

And when she's done she gets up and heads to throw away her trash, his head slumped toward the ground. She calls out to him, in front of the entire gossip mill, to come help her figure out this case, partly because she needs a neurosurgeon anyway, and partly out of resonating sympathy.

Because she knows what it feels like to be the center of the universe when all you want to do is hide in a black cloud and forget you were ever alive, but moreover because she knows exactly what it feels like to watch the person you love gallivant around with someone they'd rather spend their time with, going on as if you never existed in the first place.

And she's now a big enough person to let it wash away.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

**Addison**  
"The Tomorrow We Were Promised Yesterday" - Because of Ghosts  
**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Wait, please!" Addison screams at the four year old rushing through the house, half of her hair braided, the other half flopping carelessly on her head.

"School!" she shouts back, jumping to reach her mother's car keys off the counter, the doors to the beach wide open.

Addison watches as her daughter's interest fades into catching the kitty, poor Milo, who has been more forgiving than she foresaw. It's five-thirty, she has no caffeine in her system, and she doesn't think Dolan slept more than twenty minutes all night. She distinctly recalls being asked when school was starting at one, and at three, and being kicked awake at five until she just gave up and herded the brunette into her new socks and freshly dry cleaned outfit.

It was a big day, for both of them.

For Dolan, kindergarten. For Addison, the two year anniversary of finally achieving the dream of a child to call her own.

It isn't easy, and it wasn't ideal, costing her a great relationship with a good man who now remains her friend, but it was the only constant, her ache for a baby. And at her lowest low, she decided to fill out another round of adoption paperwork because the only thing it was wasting was her sanity, and some unfortunate fifteen year old girl picked her when the going got tough, a glorious moment, no one to share it with.

As she wrangles Dolan into nicely petting 'kitty', she quickly braids the other half of her wavy hair, and thinks how things could have gone better. Certainly it would be nice to have a man in the picture to hold her hands, or free them when need be. And it would be great if she had less working mother's guilt, but her job wasn't a sacrifice she could give. So they strike an odd compromise, Dolan keeping her on her toes constantly, learning something new every second, Addison trying to catch up, completely mesmerized.

There's a heap of toys in her office, hiding behind the pristine desk, and Sam doesn't come around as often anymore because it still stings, but as she finally releases Dolan into a pack of her new classmates, the child more outgoing than any offspring Addison could have ever produced, she knows it was all worth it.

She's finally arrived, and there's a peace in her mind, in her soul that Addison just can't put a price on.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


End file.
